682 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



of 10 inches at breast high. Under this plan the entire property, with 

 the exception of belts along lakes, streams, or other areas reserved 

 for aesthetic reasons, was cut over between 1896 and 1904. This cut 

 returned a profit and reduced the investment. 



It was a light cutting, and at once or withirl a period of about 20 

 years, the crowns of the remaining large tolerant trees occupied most 

 of the small openings. Measurements taken in this region indicate 

 that on a single acre the spreading and overlapping crowns of the 

 hardwoods alone have a crown spread equivalent to more than an 

 acre and a half of space. Only around skidways or where patches 

 of timber were removed was there much interruption of the canopy. 

 Increased growth following the cutting is relatively small. 



While failing to stimulate growth, to increase the percentage of 

 softwood, or to replace an over-mature, decaying forest by a healthy 

 young forest, Graves' cutting was the best possible, considering the 

 market conditions of that time and the sentiment in favor of very 

 conservative cutting on private preserves. 



From 1904 to 1915 no cutting was done. In 1914 a resident forester, 

 F. A. Gaylord, was employed and plans for a second cut initiated. 



The forest at the time of this second cutting was still essentially 

 virgin, lacking only the larger, older, and better quality spruce originally 

 present. The hardwoods, hemlock and balsam, were badly infected 

 with wood-rotting fungi, while the character of the spruce was dis- 

 tinctly of "second cut" rather than *'old growth" size and quality. Pos- 

 sibilities for selling forest products had greatly improved and the 

 sentiment, in reference to cutting timber, of owners holding private 

 preserves had undergone a distinct change. 



With such differences, between the present and 20 years ago, in the 

 yield per acre of the spruce, in the economic factors governing for- 

 estry practice, and in the viewpoint of the average owner an entirely 

 different style of cutting from that started by Graves logically was 

 demanded. It is now evident that the selection rnethod, which Groves 

 used probably because he could not use any other, is entirely unsuited 

 to the present form and condition of the virgin or lightly culled forest 

 of the western Adirondacks. The markets now take hemlock and 

 balsam for pulp as well as the spruce. There is a demand for hard- 

 wood logs of beech, birch, and maple. All species are saleable today. 



Since the first cutting and before Gaylord took charge of Nehasane 

 Park, a disastrous fire ran over approximately 13,000 acres of the 



